BETTING ON RACES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26413, 18 March 1947, Page 6

BETTING ON RACES

OUT OF PROPORTION V I VIEWS OF ANGLICAN CHURCH HIGH COST OF ART UNIONS P.A. WELLINGTON, Mar. 17. The views of the Church of England were presented to the Gaming Commission to-day in the form of a statement by the Public and Social Affairs Committee of the church. The statement, read by the secretary of the committee, Dr John Nicol, explained that the committee had been authorised by the General Synod to present the church’s views. It was pointed out that the committee had been in touch with other churches which had presented a combined statement, and vias in general agreement with their views. It recognised that gaming was not a subject on which a binding pronouncement could be made by the church, and that there existed among members a variety of opinions. It recognised, too, that the problem was complicated by the association of the bulk of modern gambling with a sport of great antiquity. On the other hand, there was no doubt that the leaders of the Church of England had declared themselves emphatically against the gambling habit, arising from the desire for easy gain, and leading to excessive love of excitement and to instability. Reasonable Limits Exceeded Gambling on horse races had, in the committee’s opinion, passed beyond all reasonable limits of moderation, when sums totalling as much as £940,000 were put through the machine at a single metropolitan four-day meeting, especially when it was considered that all this must have been additional to the huge volume of illegal betting related to the same meeting. It viewed with concern the increasing revenue derived by the State from racing, and would be still more concerned if the State were to exploit gambling as a source of new revenues. A notable feature of the totalisator and of alluvial gold art unions was that , third parties reaped a financial harvest from their operations. The more the members of the public gambled, the greater were the revenues accruing to the racing and. trotting clubs, and to the persons engaged in organising art unions or in selling art union tickets. The committee advocated elimination or reduction, as far as practicable, of third-party profit from gaming. It recognised that reforms in the gaming law might well be called for, but found it extremely difficult to advocate specific reforms because of fear that the provision of any new legal facilities for betting might simply mean a further increase in the total investThe committee favoured reasonable limitation of the number of totalisator permits granted to racing and trottmg clubs, and desired to see race days restricted, except for very special local reasons, to Saturdays and public holidays. Race meetings conducted on ordinary working days must contribute towards unsettlement in industry. The committee looked with disfavour on the practice of financing charitable causes by the proceeds derived from gambling, because it feared that good causes might become a pretext for permitting or encouraging a social evil. Poor Return from Art Unions If the alluvial gold art unions, as commonly conducted in New Zealand, were regarded from the viewpoint of the investor, they were found to give a very poor return, the statement said. Reference to the New Zealand Year Book showed that only 25 to 30 per cent, of the gross takings were returned to the investors as prizes, ft they were regarded primarily as a mechanism for raising funds to aid charitable objects the mechanism was seen to be extremely costly. In 1943-44, for example, the net proceeds of 12 art unions amounted to £123,070, but the commission on sales and expenses amounted to Lbß.bua, apart altogether from prizes and lotproceeds always seemed to be less than half the gross takings. If social services or worthy institutions required public support the committee felt that this should be given by means which did not divert a large share of the contributors’ money into the pockets of third persons.